


To Buy a Mockingbird

by Kari_Kurofai



Category: My Engineer (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Bohn is soft do not @ me, Domestic Boyfriends, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, It's not their kids though, M/M, Sort of a kidfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:13:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23944489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kari_Kurofai/pseuds/Kari_Kurofai
Summary: Bohn is leaning against the doorway, his hair mussed to one side and sleepless shadows under his eyes. He’s dressed in his worst shirt, the one with a hole along the bottom hem that Duen sort of hates, and a pair of well-worn sweatpants.There’s a white and pink flowered cloth tossed over one of his shoulders that’s sporting a couple of stains, and tucked into the crook of his arm that isn’t holding the door open is . . . Is . . .“What is that?” Duen asks, voice strained as he stares down at what is very clearly a tiny, fussy baby. It can’t be more than a few weeks old, a month at best, all red-faced and crinkled eyes and wiggly limbs.“A baby,” Bohn deadpans.
Relationships: Bohn/Duen (My Engineer)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 291
Collections: All





	To Buy a Mockingbird

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I have joined yet another fandom where I am starved for stuff to read and have to do everything myself. Help.
> 
> This fic is A.) a mess born out of some sort of ferverish frenzy of aproximately six hours and some editing. Don't take it too seriously and B.) based ENTIRELY off my fascination with the fact that Ben apparently lives with Bohn, a college kid, on a regular basis? And Bohn is okay with that, seemingly has another room Ben stays in (or he should), and is actually stupidly good with him and kids in general.
> 
> I'm bouncing most of my characterizations in this fic off of what we've seen through episode nine with special care to some of the discussions and drunk!Bohn's actions in particular of that most recent episode. He's a secret soft boi deprived of physical affection. Do not @ me I will fight you.

Duen is thirty-three minutes late exactly. He knows it, he’s been counting every agonizing second of his own stupidity. On one hand it’s at least a little bit funny since he’s been showing up periodically late for his dates with Bohn for over a year now, so it’s almost a running joke. On the other, he’d tried so hard to be better about it this time (and the last dozen times), only to look up in the middle of studying and realize he should have been there five minutes ago and hadn’t even showered yet.

In typical, vicious hindsight, he’s not even sure why he bothered showering at all. He’s out of breath and sweating by the time he climbs the stairs to Bohn’s apartment, now a solid thirty-six minutes late. Duen thunks his head down against the door in lieu of knocking, letting the grocery bags in his hands slump down against the floor. At the very least he should really bother finding better excuses, or maybe better apologies. He brought cake, that’s a pretty good apology, right?

The door opens and he stumbles forwards a bit. “I’m so sorry,” he says without looking up. “I lost track of time, but I brought stuff for dinner. I hope you’re not too hungry.” He straightens up, meaning to heft the bags into view and display that, despite his tardiness, he’d at least come through in that regard. But instead the bags slip through his fingers entirely as he takes in the sight standing before him.

Bohn is leaning against the doorway, his hair mussed to one side and sleepless shadows under his eyes. He’s dressed in his worst shirt, the one with a hole along the bottom hem that Duen sort of hates, and a pair of well-worn sweatpants.There’s a white and pink flowered cloth tossed over one of his shoulders that’s sporting a couple of stains, and tucked into the crook of his arm that isn’t holding the door open is . . . Is . . .

“What is _that_?” Duen asks, voice strained as he stares down at what is very clearly a tiny, fussy baby. It can’t be more than a few weeks old, a month at best, all red-faced and crinkled eyes and wiggly limbs. 

“A baby,” Bohn deadpans, a tight and tired edge to his voice. It’s the “ _You’re an idiot_ ” tone, the one that really only starts to show when he’s especially exhausted or just flat out done with everything. He flinches as soon as the words are out of his mouth and frowns, shuffling back to let Duen into the apartment with a muttered, “Sorry,” before he’s turning away and padding back towards the bedroom. 

Duen follows him inside and deposits the groceries on the countertop. “Okay, but where did you get a baby?” he calls after him. It’s a valid question, right? Babies don’t just appear magically; Duen’s a med student, he should know.

Bohn reappears around the corner dragging a little lifted wicker bassinet across the hardwood with his free hand. “What do you mean where did I get a baby?” he asks without so much as a glance in Duen’s direction. He shoves the bassinet into the corner of the living room between the kitchen and sofa, and then turns on his heels to stomp back into his bedroom. 

“What do you mean what do I mean-” Duen cuts himself off with a snort before he can work himself into a circle with that one. “Bohn! _Where did you get a baby_!” When Bohn neither replies nor returns he throws up his hands and follows after him. Bohn is half kneeled on the bed, carefully wrapping the infant up in a blanket with the sureminded efficiency of a man who knows what he’s doing. Duen falters, his eyebrows furrowing. “Bohn?”

“Yep?” Bohn doesn’t look up, tucking the last corner of the blanket in and scooping the baby back into the crook of his arm. “What’s up?”

“The baby,” Duen repeats. “Where did you get it?” The infant is mostly quiet now, gurgling with the contented sounds of being successfully swaddled into submission, and Duen stares at the familiar shape of its eyes, the auburn cowlick of hair. 

“It’s ours,” Bohn says with absolutely zero inflection. Duen jerks his gaze up, mouth popping open before his brain can catch up and actually acknowledge the absurdity of that claim. “You impregnated me. Congrats,” Bohn drawls.

Staggering back, Duen reaches a hand behind him to steady himself against the dresser as his legs threaten to give out. It’s only after Bohn tips his head back to bark out a laugh that the gears in his brain start turning again, and he spits, “That’s not funny!”

“You’re a _med student_ ,” Bohn chokes out, red faced and near tears as he tries to stifle more laughter into the back of his free hand. “You should have seen your _face_! Where’s my phone when I need it? _Holy shit_.”

Duen points a shaky finger at him, “Do _not_ take a picture. If you post this shit on Instagram I won’t cook for you for a week! No, a month!”

Bohn snickers and shakes his head, “Alright, alright. It’s my aunt’s kid, by the way. Ben’s here too doing homework in his room.”

That probably should have been obvious, Duen thinks as Bohn leans over to peck a kiss to his cheek and stride past and out into the living room again. Ben practically lives there half the time anyways, and from the disgustingly specific things he spouts about his parents’ sex lives Duen is actually rather surprised he didn’t have any younger siblings before. Once his legs work again he stumbles after Bohn, a thousand more questions already on the tip of his tongue. “Your relatives left you with an infant?!” he practically squawks as he rounds the corner, and then immediately clamps his hands over his mouth as Bohn gives him a poisonous look over his shoulder.

He’s leaning over the bassinet, cooing softly as he pulls the curved shade up to block out the dying sunset light filtering in through the windows. “Please sleep,” he sing-songs. “Please, please sleep.” The baby gurgles back at him, and he sticks his tongue out at it before bouncing quickly back on his heels, his hands steepling in front of his face like a prayer.

Silence rings through the room, and Bohn does a quiet, victorious fist pump before whipping the cloth off his shoulder and tossing it onto the coffee table. He slides across the hardwood in his socks and snags the front of Duen’s shirt, dragging him in for a kiss.

Duen gets a hand between them after a second, nudging him back. “You haven’t brushed your teeth today, have you,” he remarks, wincing when Bohn outright scowls at him. “Bohn-”

Bohn releases him and stalks into the bathroom, the sound of running water crashing through the too-quiet apartment a second later. Duen sighs and moves to take up one of the stools at the kitchen counter. After a minute Bohn huffs his way back out and grabs him with both hands by the collar to press his lips against his once more. “There,” he pouts as he pulls back for a breath, “Minty fresh. Better?”

“Much,” Duen affirms. He takes him by the chin, trailing his thumbs up along the line of his boyfriend’s jaw and leans in for another. 

Pleased, Bohn edges closer to tuck himself between Duen’s knees dangling off the edge of the stool and brace his hands on the counter on either side of him. “I don’t know why you’re so shocked about Bunmi,” he mutters after a moment. “Ben’s here all the time.”

Duen frowns and knocks their foreheads together. “Ben is seven. There’s a huge difference between looking after a grade-schooler and a baby who can’t even eat solid foods.”

“I took care of Ben when he was a baby, too,” Bohn says quietly, and Duen’s hands fall to his shoulders, squeezing around his biceps as his stomach twists.

“I thought Ben grew up overseas.”

Bohn scoffs, “Yeah, from ages two to five. His dad’s a diplomat, how do you think he met my aunt in the first place? They started out here.” He shakes off Duen’s hold after a moment and reaches around him to peek into the grocery bags. “Ben was over at my parents’ place a lot when I was in high school. And they had galas and banquets and other high society shit to attend, so that left me to take care of him most of the time. Why do you think Auntie lets him stay over here so often? He’s used to it.” Pulling out a package of beef he hoists it over his head like a hard won trophy. “Yeeesss!” he whispers, his eyes brighter than they’ve been since Duen arrived. “You’re so good to me, babe! Let’s eat, I’m starving!”

A lump in his throat, Duen reels him back in by the hem of his stupid, holey shirt. “Have you eaten anything today?” he asks, already knowing the answer. Bohn studiously averts his eyes. “Bohn . . .”

“I don’t want a lecture,” Bohn says fiercely, still looking away. “I’m fine with the way things are, I’m only sorry it ruined our date night.” Something odd flashes through his gaze then, an old creeping of doubt that Duen hasn’t seen in quite awhile. “Anyways, dinner?” he says, too quickly.

Trying to needle anything out of Bohn has always been a struggle. He bottles his fears up, covers for them behind smart remarks and telltale ticks until they fester and bleed. He’s getting better about it, they both are, but Duen recognizes the way his shoulders hunch, the thin, guarded line of his mouth. He won’t get anywhere by forcing this discussion, he knows by now that it’s better to wait, to watch. Bohn speaks clearer with his actions than with his words, and Duen is ever the studious observer. “Alright,” he concedes softly, taking the packet of beef from him. “I’ll get started on dinner.”

Cooking at this point is almost a ritual for them, an old song and dance with lyrics and steps they know by heart. Bohn’s still a god awful cook, but he’s adept enough at chopping vegetables and boiling noodles after a little coaching that Duen can usually afford to occupy himself with the more complicated stuff. They’re good at moving around each other, communicating through hip checks and the nudging of shoulders, though sometimes Duen dreams of a bigger space where he won’t have to worry about spilling something because Bohn has an obsession with tying and retying his apron at the most inconvenient times. While they eat out on occasion the frequent overnight presence of Ben and occasionally Daonua keeps them in more often than not, and at this point Duen wouldn’t have it any other way. He likes the lull of it all, enjoys how they’ve found their niches and habits in the quiet solitude of the apartment. 

He’s turning the meat over in the pan and watching it sizzle when Bohn suddenly hisses, jerking his hand away from the cutting board and clutching it to his chest. Duen’s on him in a heartbeat, grabbing his wrist and pressing up against his back as he takes in the sight of a clean cut flayed out along the first knuckles of Bohn’s pointer and middle fingers. He tightens his hold and lifts the bleeding hand well away from the half finished pile of vegetables and reaches around to turn the burner off to his other side. It’s one of those things he should have thought of ahead of time, he thinks bitterly as he turns Bohn around to examine the wound in better light. He’d seen how tired he was, noticed the dark circles starting to form under his eyes, and then he’d handed him a knife. “I’m sorry,” he says thickly.

Bohn’s nose scrunches up, “What? Why are you sorry? Don’t be stupid.” He pulls his hand away and scoots to the side before Duen can snatch it up again. “First aid kit is in the bathroom,” he says, like Duen isn’t keenly aware of where every first aid kit is in any place he stays in for more than an hour. “I’ll be right back.”

“Let me help you,” Duen pleads, but Bohn just rolls his eyes.

“If I let you patch me up every time I get hurt I’ll develop a fetish, _doctor._ ”

Duen purses his lips and puts his hands on his hips. “As if you don’t already have one.”

Bohn flaps his non-bleeding hand at him, “Shhhh. Finish the food. It’s just a little cut, I’m fine.” 

He disappears into the bathroom and Duen settles himself back into his work. But the rhythm has been disrupted, the calm broken by the first beats of a storm, and he stares down at the beef sizzling weakly in the pan as he turns the burner back on with a disquieted frown. 

Bohn’s just starting his last bit of school, rounding out his Engineering degree while a minimum of four more years weigh on Duen. A twenty-two year old trying to graduate shouldn’t have to be raising a kid, let alone two. And it’s not like he’s never questioned Ben’s near constant presence before, they’ve had to work around it quiet a few times by planning sleepovers for him and Daonua at Duen's house when his mom was available to watch them. But Bohn had always just shrugged and smiled, as cocky as ever as he’d answered, “ _I like having him around, so it’s fine_.”

Fine, he realizes abruptly, is not a college kid owning a two bedroom apartment because he expects to find himself saddled with a child every few days. 

Fine is not his boyfriend apologizing to him for ruining date night as if he’s the one who regularly foisters his kids off onto people half his age. 

Duen heaves out a heavy exhale and leans against the counter as he moves to finish up the half diced vegetables. He has to calm down before Bohn comes back or it’ll end in a fight. 

It’s not as if he dislikes Ben’s presence, it’s not much different from having Daonua around. But Daonua is only his responsibility once or twice a week at most. Ben is at Bohn’s apartment often enough that he has his own god damn room.

“Your eyes crinkle up when you’re deep in thought.”

Duen jerks his head up as Bohn slides into one of the stools across the counter, startled. “They do?” Great, that’ll turn into wrinkles when he gets older. 

Bohn leans his head against his hands and covers a yawn with the tips of his now bandaged fingers. “Yeah. It’s cute.”

Turning back to cutting vegetables, Duen wonders if he’ll ever stop blushing around this man. It’s been over a year and little comments like that still pull his lips into a shy smile. Bohn smirks at him and slumps further against the counter. He’s changed his shirt, Duen notes, and his stomach twists as he wonders if he got blood on it. He doesn’t ask. Bohn folds his arms across the granite and lets his forehead fall down onto them with a sigh that drags a line of tension out of his shoulders. “You should sleep,” Duen says softly, nodding towards the sofa. “It’ll be awhile still until we can eat.”

“I want to watch you cook,” Bohn grumbles despite the fact that he’s more or less face down on the counter and decidedly _not_ watching Duen do much of anything. 

“And I’d like you to be awake later,” Duen counters, purposefully vague. 

Bohn perks up a little and looks at him over the curve of his arm with half-lidded eyes. After a second he seems to come to a decision, and gets up to go flop over onto the sofa instead. It’s a bit overdramatic, but Duen’s not going to complain so long as he gets his way in the end. 

Vegetables taken care of and simmering in their own pan, he ducks into the bedroom to grab the comforter off the bed and bring it back to toss over Bohn. He curls up into the warmth almost immediately, burying his face in the fabric with a mumbled, “So good to me,” that makes Duen’s heart clench.

He stops for awhile, crouched down beside the sofa in the waning evening light as if he can make time stand still. His fingers card through Bohn’s hair, tuck errant locks behind his ears and out of his eyes to the tune of quiet sighs shifting into the even inhales and exhales of sleep. When he stands again he pauses by the bassinet and peeks in to find the baby in a similar state. She does look a lot like Ben, like Bohn, and he rolls his eyes a little as he recalls how that had made his brain stutter to a halt earlier. It makes sense that they look alike, being cousins and all. A brief flare of annoyance sparks in his veins at that thought, and he quickly and bitterly reminds himself that she’s not at fault. He reaches into the bassinet and carefully adjusts a loose corner of the blanket around her.

With that in mind he goes back to the task of finishing dinner, taking a moment every now and then to watch sunset shadows stretch out and fade over both sleeping figures. 

A half hour later Ben peeks out from his room and Duen waves him quietly over, noting how he gives the bassinet the stink-eye as he passes it. “Your sister been here long?” Duen asks, realizing as soon as he says it that he could have phrased that a little better. Ben’s Thai has improved significantly, but it probably doesn’t help to be vague. 

“Six weeks,” Ben mutters.

Six weeks old? And they’re passing her off on Bohn? He wonders if Ram would be down to punch someone if he paid him enough money. 

Duen hands Ben three plates and nudges him to set the table. “How about this weekend? When did you guys get here?”

Ben tilts his head, “Friday?”

No wonder Bohn had been so tired. Duen glances to where he’s sleeping, the lights of the city outside flickering into the colorful hues of the Saturday nightlife, and bites the inside of his lip so hard he tastes blood. “Do you like it here, Ben?” he asks quietly, threading fingers through the boy’s hair as he comes back to his side. 

"Bro watches _Detective Conan_ with me,” he says, the exact sort of childish answer Duen expected. “And you make the best dinners.” He frowns, pressing his face into Duen’s side and bunching up his shirt. “It’s loud now, though.”

“Babies are loud,” Duen agrees. “But sisters are good once they get a little older. Daonua is my sister,” he reminds. She’s practically Ben’s sister, too.

Ben wrinkles his nose up at him, a mirror image of Bohn. “I don’t want one,” he says with tiny vehemence, and Duen can’t help but coo and ruffle his hair. 

They finish setting the table and Duen gets him settled in with his portion before he moves to check on the baby again. She’s still fast asleep and tightly cocooned in the blanket, and Duen takes a moment to recall how expertly Bohn had settled her into it, like it was a well perfected art. When Daonua had been little, Duen had frustrated himself to tears trying to imitate his mother’s method of folding her up into the blanket, more than once ending up with a screaming baby on his hands while he was trying to let her rest. 

He wanders, pulls open cabinet doors and studying the little details left lying around. His eyes find the bottles tucked into the corner of the dish drainer, powdered formula in the pantry, and when Duen checks the bathroom he isn’t surprised to discover infant diapers stacked under the sink ranging in sizes of one to three months, and a changing pad on the counter. In the bedroom he notes a padded playmat folded into the corner behind the dresser and a stack of fresh burp cloths with a receipt still tucked in between them on top of it. It’s from Friday evening, and it includes a few other things Duen doesn’t have time to dig around for and a couple of items he suspects had been purchased to soothe a testy seven year old. 

Entering the living room again, he comes across Bohn helping himself to a plate. “You could have slept longer,” he chides, exasperated. If he protests he knows Bohn will at least consider resting more, maybe even for the remainder of the night, but he lets that thought die before he can voice it.

“Nah, I’m good. Cat naps are the key to this,” Bohn winks as he takes the seat left open between Ben and the bassinet. “How’s homework, kiddo?”

Ben gives him a side-eye and chews thoughtfully for a moment. “Finished?”

“Is it actually finished or are you saying that because you want your Switch back?”

Clearly caught out, Ben scowls and stares down at his plate. 

Bohn gives him a very sarcastic consoling pat on the back. “Nice try.”

Duen blinks, his hands clenching at his sides as his heart does a weird, brand new sort of somersault in his chest. 

They get most of the way through dinner before the baby wakes up, and Duen barely catches Ben by the collar of his shirt when he tries to bolt back into his bedroom at the first wavering wail. “No,” he scolds sharply, turning him back around and kicking a stool up against the counter under the sink. “You’re going to help me wash dishes.”

Bohn doesn’t even finish his food, though he at least makes a sizeable dent in it. Duen scoops it into a tupperware container as he watches him fuss over the baby. He sweeps her out of the room for a bit and comes back a few minutes later sans blanket to lean up against Duen’s side. “Can I have that pot when you’re done washing it?” he asks, his chin on Duen’s shoulder. “I need to boil water.”

Duen finishes washing and shakes some of the water off before turning it right-side-up and filling it. “This good?”

“Yep, thanks babe.”

He gets a kiss on the cheek for his meager efforts, and Bohn busies himself with measuring out formula and mumbling half-formed lullabies to the still unhappy baby. Duen observes him out of the corners of his eyes as he passes Ben dishes to dry, taking in the way Bohn bounces on his heels and rocks her back and forth to some tune only he can hear. His heart does that weird flip and twist in his chest again and Duen swallows down against it.

It’s not fair of him to find this cute, not when he's still unsure of the intricacies of the situation, not when it's potentially hurting Bohn. He absentmindedly passes Ben another spoon to dry and huffs out a startled laugh when his attempts are countered with the clink of clashing silverware. “Oh?” he muses, turning his attention to him, “A sword fight, is it?”

They spar, and Duen lets Ben back him up into the fridge before he lifts his hands in mock surrender. “You have bested me!” he sighs. “What will you take for your reward?”

“Not the Switch,” Bohn pipes up from the stove.

Ben pouts for a minute as he climbs back up on the stool to put the spoons into the drainer. As casually as possible Duen moves to begin unpacking the last of the grocery bags, biting down a smile when Ben notices. “Cake?”

“How strange, I happen to have cake right here!” Duen declares, holding one of the little containers aloft. He bows, presenting it to Ben with a flourish. Ben grins, showing off the teeth he’s started to lose, and snatches it from him. “If you finish your homework you can have a second.”

Bohn whips around to glare at him while Ben cheers. “He’ll get fat!” he hisses.

Duen pinches his side, “What, like you, Lizard-boy?” 

“I’m not fat, I’m fit,” Bohn says, sticking his tongue out. He turns the burner off and pulls the pot off to place it to the side. “Besides, if I do get fat it’s your fault. It’s your cooking I’m eating.” He turns, and Duen has all of two seconds to register what’s about to happen before he’s suddenly being passed an armful of squirming baby.

“Bohn!”

Raising an eyebrow, Bohn just rolls his eyes and reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind Duen’s ear. “Relax. I knew you wouldn’t drop her. Now shoo, I need to measure all this crap out.”

It’s a little easier said than done, and Duen gingerly shifts his hold on the baby until she’s nestled against his shoulder, beating tiny fists into his chest as she wails in his ear. He should probably complain about this a little more, someone should, but Bohn’s already focused on dividing the water up between bottles, measuring it out with a critical eye, and Duen’s heart does that unasked for, stupid tumble again. God damnit.

He goes to the bedroom to fetch one of the burp cloths, both in an effort to be at least somewhat helpful and to settle down the nervous thrum that’s begun to work its way through his skin. His eyes find Bohn’s phone sitting on the bedside table and he scoops that up too on his way out, recalling that he hadn’t been able to find it earlier.

It’s almost fully charged, and he unlocks it as he makes his way over to the couch. His eyes widen as it lights up to a cascade of open tabs of apartment listings all wildly out of his own price range as a student. But Bohn’s parents are, as he recalls, disgustingly rich. His allowance per month is probably more than Duen gets in a year; his current apartment is more than enough proof of that. Plus . . . “Hey,” he asks, juggling the phone a little as he adjusts the baby on his shoulder so she’s not drooling directly down the side of his neck, “Do your relatives pay you for this?”

“Duh,” Bohn snorts from the kitchen. He closes the fridge and sets aside a little cup of powdered formula on the counter. “Can you set a timer for ten minutes? It should be cool enough by then.”

Duen does so and flips back to the apartment ads, distracted by one that claims to include not one but two full bathrooms as Bohn comes to sit down beside him. “You don’t do this just because they pay you, do you?” he questions when Bohn takes the baby from him. 

“Nope.”

He’d thought as much, and he rubs a hand to his chest to try and stave off another warm thrill of his heart. It doesn’t work, but at least the guilt over it is starting to ease.

Bohn settles the baby on her back across his knees and wiggles down into the couch until he's pressed up against Duen's side from shoulder to ankle. “I’ve thought about this a lot, you know,” he says, lifting her little arms over her head and ducking down to blow a raspberry against one puffy cheek. The baby’s cries cut off with a hiccup and Bohn smiles in satisfaction. “I’m pretty much going to inherit enough money to buy an island or seven, and my degree is mostly going towards making me look good on paper when my dad passes the company over. Once I graduate it’s pretty much smooth sailing until he retires, and even after that I can do most of my work from home.”

Duen stares at him, “You want to work from home?”

“Mm,” Bohn affirms. “Do I look like a work-force guy? Ha!” He blows another raspberry on the baby’s opposite cheek. Duen thinks she’s a little too young to laugh, but she kicks her legs which he figures might be some sort of baby approximation. “One of us should stay home anyways, I’m not a huge fan of leaving kids with nannies.”

There are two things in that sentence that snap up Duen’s attention immediately, and he wars over which one to address first. “Were you nannied?” he settles on, though he thinks he already knows the answer.

“Constantly.” There’s a surprising lack of bitterness in Bohn’s tone, but it still stings with a tinge of long-worn resignation. “We had a parents day once in grade school, and I just remember the look my teacher gave me when my nanny came instead of my mom and dad. I don’t think I really realized it was weird until then, when I was old enough to understand what pity looked like.” He takes the baby’s hands in his again, lets her curl small fingers over his thumbs and try and yank them around. “I was pretty angry about it for awhile, got into quite a few fights with other kids over stupid shit. The school counselor said I was doing it for attention, and I probably was. It worked though, my dad was _piiiiiiiised_ ,” he crows, his chest puffed with pride. “He had to fly back to the country in the middle of the night to attend a meeting with the principal.”

“Bohn . . .”

“Anyways,” Bohn goes on before he can say anything. “The first time my aunt brought Ben over my parents wanted to hire another nanny to be on call for when he was staying with us, and I wasn’t into that. So I just set up an agreement with my aunt and her husband that he could come over as long as I wasn’t in class, and it’s worked out okay. We have a schedule by now, and I really only get nights like this sprung upon me every once in awhile.”

“What’s the special occasion this time?” Duen asks dryly.

Bohn wrinkles his nose and covers the baby’s ears with his hands. “If I had to take a wild guess, I would say six weeks is the allotted time postpartum that doctors recommend before sexual activity.”

Duen turns his eyes to the ceiling with a gag. “Gross.”

The alarm goes off, and Bohn jumps up off the sofa to go snatch one of the bottles from the fridge. Duen follows him after a moment, peering over his shoulder as he mixes in the powder and juggles the baby against his arms to tilt a drop out onto his wrist. He considers the other question bouncing around in his head and turns to study the room as a whole, the washed dishes, Ben’s toys scattered on the coffee table, the cake on the countertop, the baby gurgling happily tucked into his boyfriend’s arm. 

“What did you mean when you said, ‘One of us should stay home?’” Duen asks softly. He’s not really surprised when Bohn’s face immediately shutters, or when he twists away from the touch of his hand on his hip. At first he had hated that, hated how even after they started dating Bohn would be quick to fall into such tense unease. Part of him still hates it, but for entirely different reasons. Duen likes to think he can read him better now, pick up on the distaste that brews inward more so than outward. 

They’re getting better at it, he knows the cues, and he reaches out again to settle a hand against the nape of Bohn’s neck this time and trails his fingers down his spine and back up again. “Doctors work long hours,” he says slowly, tentatively, just in case he’s wrong. “So you’re right, someone should be home.” 

It’s not a promise, but as he says it Duen wonders if maybe it could be when Bohn tilts his head just enough in his direction for him to see the startled delight beginning to bloom across his face. God, he’s so easily pleased. It’s a crime, really, for him to still get so stunned over things like roses and dinners and the quiet first steps of commitments. Duen remembers him standing on the other side of a glass door, clutching a bouquet of flowers he’d had to google the meaning of and casting him sly smiles. He gets one now, too, a smirk and a raised eyebrow, and barely refrains from rolling his eyes.

“Don’t get too excited,” he huffs, “You haven’t even chosen a place yet.”

“Riiiiiight,” Bohn drawls. “Any requests for that?”

Really, Duen’s pretty sure he should say he doesn’t have any. He’s not big on spontaneity, prefers to plan everything to the point that he knows the ins and outs of each step. But Bohn’s cheeky grin is doing those weird things to his heart again and that’s been his weakness for quite awhile now. “A bath,” he says finally. “Kids like baths better than showers and I’m shocked this place doesn’t have one.”

“Oh, a bath. For _the kids_." Bohn says, too knowingly for Duen’s taste. “Of course.”

Duen smacks him lightly on the arm that currently isn’t full of baby. “Shut up. You’re the worst.”

“What does that make you since you’re in love with ‘the worst?’” Bohn asks with cheshire delight. 

An idiot, clearly. Instead of voicing aloud that bit of self doubt, Duen merely holds out his arms. “Baby,” he demands.

Bohn’s eyebrows furrow, “Huh?”

“You’re a mess, I’m pretty sure you haven’t showered since yesterday, and I can handle feeding and putting an infant to bed well enough to manage for forty-five minutes.” Duen lifts his arms again. “Baby.”

“Love it when you call me baby,” Bohn snickers, kissing the corner of his mouth and obligingly handing the infant off to him, bottle and all.

Duen sputters and steps back, “That’s not what I was-”

Bohn gives him a salute, already walking backwards towards the bathroom. “Put Ben to bed too and I’ll give you a treat, _baby_.”

“I already hate it when you call me babe!” Duen shouts after him. “Do not add fucking _baby_ to your vocabulary, Bohn!”

The door shuts, barely muffling Bohn’s return of, “You like it!”

Whether or not he does, Duen vows to take that secret to the grave. Out of spite. 

Adding an infant to their already too-long bedtime routine doesn’t shake things up as much as Duen thought it might. It helps a little that, post second piece of cake, Ben is much more easily coerced into ceasing his search for his Switch when Duen finds him digging through Bohn’s closet a few minutes later. “Did you finish your homework?” he scolds quietly as he crouches down beside him, his hands too occupied to do anything else.

Ben scowls at the baby in his arms, but nods. “I need my math problems checked, though,” he mutters after some thought, and Duen coaxes him back into the kitchen to show him his work packet.

He’s already checked these same problems with his own sibling this morning, so Duen makes quick work of it all while finishing feeding the baby, whose name he realizes he’s already forgotten. “What’s your sister’s name again?” he asks when he catches Ben watching him settle her against the burp cloth on his shoulder.

“Bunmi,” Ben mutters. “Can I have another cake?”

Duen hums out a note as if he’s actually considering, which he’s not. There’s pancake mix in the cabinet left over from a few weeks ago, and he offers that up instead. “We can have pancakes for breakfast tomorrow, how about that?”

Resigned, Ben pushes his homework away and nods again. They sit there for a minute, the distant sounds of the city, the shower running, and the baby hiccupping settling around them before Ben speaks again. “Can I stay here when mommy and daddy take Bunmi back tomorrow?”

Ah, geeze. Duen shifts his gaze to the ceiling and pats the baby on the back as he searches for a good response to that. He’d been in middle school when his sister was born, it had almost been a relief for his parents to have something else to invest their affection on. But Ben, who already has his parents’ attention divided . . . “No,” he replies after a moment. “She’s your sister, Ben. You have to look out for her. Like how Bohn looks out for you.”

Ben wrinkles his nose, “You sound like him.”

Oh. Fantastic. Duen shifts slightly in his seat, hoping the kid can’t see his cheeks heat as he tries to untangle the absolute mess those words make of his heart. “I think that just means we’re doubly correct,” he says when he faces him again.

The sheer doubt on Ben’s face is palpable, and Duen struggles not to snort at the sight of it. He trails his suspicious gaze from Duen to his sister, and then back again, before holding out a hand. “Switch,” he demands.

Duen blinks.

“She can be my sister if I can have my Switch back. My homework is done.”

Well, Duen supposes that’s a fair enough deal. He stands, adjusting Bunmi on his shoulder as he reaches up to the top of the fridge to grab the console from where he’d spotted it earlier. He holds it out and with overly grave sincerity says, “I’ll take it away again if you don’t keep that promise. You have to be a good big brother.”

It’s not that easy, he knows it’s not. But he likes the way Ben’s nose wrinkles again, the way he huffs on a sigh like he’s just been burdened with the weight of the world when he takes the Switch. “Fine.”

He scampers back into his room before Duen can get another word in, slamming the door shut. Duen rolls his eyes and makes a mental note to make sure he’s actually asleep and not playing games later. 

When he wanders back into the bedroom Bohn is standing around in nothing but a loosely wrapped towel and using another one to ruffle his hair dry. “You have kids over,” Duen remarks dryly as he passes him to take the baby into the bathroom. Bohn just follows and whips the damp towel off his shoulders to smack Duen across the ass. “Bohn!”

“She’s a month old. She has no object permanence,” Bohn counters. “It’s fine. You only have to start being concerned when they’re smart enough to parrot back your swears.”

“I don’t swear,” Duen says haughtily, a total lie. But he’s careful not to do so around Ben and Daonua, so that counts for something. And it’s certainly a bit more than Bohn can boast. He shoos him out of the bathroom on that note and sets about the mildly nauseating task of changing Bunmi. Medical student, he reminds himself. He’s a medical student.

Bohn gives him a round of applause when he passes him in the bedroom again, and Duen aims a kick at his shins as he goes. It only serves to tip Bohn back onto the bed in muffled hysterics, and Duen flips him off over his shoulder with his free hand.

It takes him awhile to settle her down, fifteen minutes of cooing and mumbling and trying that weird bouncing trick he’d seen Bohn doing before he’s able to set the baby in the bassinet without her instantly screaming her head off. He’s not into pediatrics, and he struggles to try and remember if she’s old enough that they should be concerned about self soothing, or if that’s even still a thing experts recommend. But after a little more pleading and coaxing he manages, relief coursing through him when she stuffs a fist in her mouth and blinks back up at him with tired eyes on his final attempt. 

He holds up three fingers into her view. “Three hours, please? So Bohn can rest?” When he gets the expected lack of response he lowers one, “I’ll settle for two, and then I’ll get up. How about that?” She gurgles, and he lets her grip his pinky like they're making a pact before he backs away to a merciful lack of crying.

His shirt is a god damn mess he realizes as he makes his way back to the bedroom and strips it off. Between making dinner, doing the dishes, and the general disaster tornado of wrangling not one but two kids, he supposes it’s lucky he has a shirt left at all. Bohn had clearly been wearing his worst one earlier for a reason. He pulls one of Bohn’s really tacky ones from the closet (which may or may not have been one he picked out, thank you very much), and tugs that on instead.

“Don’t bother,” Bohn mutters from the bed, and Duen whips around to stare at where he’s sprawled across the top of the comforter on his stomach, still clad in only a towel.

“Sleep,” he chides immediately even as something hot coils low in his gut.

Bohn lifts an eyebrow and props his chin into the crook of his arm. His ankles are hooked together where they’re dangling over the edge of the mattress, his toes curling. He doesn’t say anything, but Duen can read that stupid face like a fucking book. 

“Bohn,” he warns lowly.

The towel, Duen notes with a sharp inhale, isn’t actually wrapped all the way around his waist at all. Worse, he realizes, Bohn only has one arm tucked under his chin, and the one on the far side of his body is pressed down between him and the sheets. He quickly turns his gaze to the side in some sort of futile attempt to be a stronger man. “Your hand,” he chokes. “Bohn, _come on_ -”

“You can either watch me do it myself, or you can do _me_ ,” Bohn goads, his smirk turning into a toothy, triumphant grin when Duen just spins on his heels and marches over to lock the door. 

How easily old arguments have turned into teasing remarks, Duen thinks as he stalks back towards the bed and kicks out of his pants, throws his shirt back off. Bohn withdraws his hand as soon as he kneels down over him on the mattress, uncurling like a cat and stretching out until the towel pools lower over the curve of his ass. Duen pulls it away entirely with deft fingers, tracing back up the line of his spine as it falls to the floor. “You’re awful,” he murmurs. “Aren’t you tired?”

Bohn hums out a low, contented note. “Yeah, but it’s fine. You’ll take care of me. You always do.”

Duen still isn’t sure why those words spark something so fierce in him, set his blood on fire and hitch his breath in his throat. Maybe it’s because it’s true, or maybe it’s because of the sheer amount of trust in the way Bohn always says it, how he goes almost boneless under Duen’s touch while each syllable falls breathily from his lips. His pliancy is private, saved for these shared moments between them in the dark, and Duen loves him more than he can ever say.

He gets back up, ignoring Bohn’s whines of protest as he puts the wet towel in the hamper and unfolds a fresh one off the shelf at the top of the closet. The bedside drawer is pulled open and closed again, and Bohn sighs and holds a pillow to his chest, watching him with half lidded eyes. “Too lazy to change the sheets?” he guesses as Duen presses a hand to his hip and rolls him over just enough to slip the towel under him and tug the comforter to the end of the bed. 

“I don’t think you of all people should be lecturing me on being lazy right now,” Duen points out as he straddles his thighs. 

“M’not lazy, I’m tired,” Bohn reminds with a serene, yet somehow still disgustingly cheeky smile over his shoulder. 

Duen leans over him and catches one of his earlobes in his mouth and drags his teeth over his earring until it earns him a choked groan. “There are two kids just a single wooden door away,” Duen reminds, pressing a kiss to the line of his jaw. “Maybe you should actually act tired and shut up?”

“Shutting up now,” Bohn affirms readily.

It’s not a promise Duen thinks he can keep, but he appreciates the effort. 

They’d tried a lot of things at first, dogged by the advices of their meddling friends and the internet into switching it up and taking just about everything for a spin. But ultimately this was what suited them best, and it was no one’s business but their own.

Bohn sighs into the pillow at the first press of a finger into him, his eyes closed and his back rippling with even, slow breaths. He’s always so quiet during this part, expressing his pleasure by the curl of his fingers in the sheets and the roll of his hips back into Duen’s hand. When he does speak it’s in murmured affirmations, his words dipping down into satisfied hums and trailing off into hitched sounds he muffles into the curve of his arm. It’s as if the world has closed in around them, the air thick with so many unsaid things that everything spoken between them lingers with a galaxy of want. 

Duen has long catalogued all those little noises, knows the stops and stalls and starts of them and what they mean. He knows when Bohn’s ready without asking by the way his breathing turns just the slightest bit shallower, how he always cants his hips back into his fingers with a stutter to chase the way Duen crooks them just right. He knows too that Bohn more often than not prefers it slow, relishes in that first, deep press inside. His ears seek out the sounds of ragged breaths turning into steady pants as he sinks in, takes him for his own in seconds and centimeters until they’re moulded fully together both inside and out. 

Bohn tilts his head to the side, his cheek pressed into the pillow as Duen curls over him and wraps a hand around the back of his knuckles where his fingers are fisting into the sheets. “See,” he mumbles as Duen kisses the corner of his mouth, his eyelid as it slips closed on his next exhale, the back of his neck, “knew you’d take care of me.”

He always does. “Do you want a hand or are you good?” Duen asks quietly, curling his free one over Bohn’s hip. 

“No. I’m alright.”

“Okay.”

Sometimes Duen thinks about how quick and messy they’d started out, like there was never enough time to take time. Thoughts like those always make him pause, make him press lines of kisses over Bohn’s shoulder blades and the shaking bow of his back. Now he fears wasting time, not taking enough of it when he has it. He memorizes every shudder and sigh, relishes in each new, shivering utterance of his name. There are a litany of tiny bruises dancing over the space between Bohn’s shoulders and beginning to trail down his spine, marks sucked into skin to bloom in rosey, flowered hues where no one else can see. Duen adds to them every chance he gets, lets some fade and renews others until he knows where they are by heart, can press a thumb to them even through the fabric of a shirt. 

He does so now, tastes those little broken pants where they echo through Bohn's ribs and tremble beneath his skin. Preemptively he releases Bohn’s hand in favor of curling deft fingers around his jaw, covering his mouth beneath the curve of his palm. It always happens eventually, the buildup gradual until Bohn’s jagged breathing turns into choked moans and garbled swears.

He’s not quiet, not even a little bit, sharp keens muffled against Duen’s palm and escaping between his fingers until Duen stops moving entirely, a hand holding his boyfriend’s hips down with bruising force. “I’m trying, I’m trying,” Bohn gasps out, shaking his head against the pillow. He’s scrabbling at the sheets, desperately attempting to rock back into him, but Duen holds him still. “Please. Please please _please_. I’ll be quiet. Please, Duen, _baby_ , please.”

It's going to be one one of the nights where Bohn will bite his lip too hard, and Duen's found old well worn lines along the inside when he’s kissed him before, run his tongue across them with worry until Bohn laughs into his mouth. He bites down on it the next time Duen rolls his hips forward, and still the noise he makes rings out too loud, a strangled sob of relief.

Bohn bunches the pillow up under his chest, presses the corner of it to his mouth until it’s damp. “Yes, just like that. Perfect. So good.” 

They’ve tried more surefire methods of keeping him quiet, but while Bohn had been eager to test each one Duen had always hated them, missed the noises, the muffled pleas and praises the second they were gone. Still, though . . . “Shhh,” he soothes as he hikes Bohn’s hips up higher, grinds in a little harder. A locked door only does so much.

Bohn mewls, clenching around him so harshly Duen scratches his nails up his sides, strung abruptly close to finishing too soon. “I ca- _ah-_ can’t," Bohn chokes, "I _can’t_ . M’so close, babe. Please, just- _ah!”_

Duen clamps a hand over his mouth again, for all the good he knows it will do. “Shut. Up.” He winces as teeth dig into the ball of his thumb. _Oral fixation_ , he thinks dizzily, and lets him. 

It doesn’t take much more, and Bohn’s shout when he comes vibrates up Duen’s arm from the sole of his hand. He holds him through it, traces each tremble and coil of his muscles with fingers pressed to the taught space below his navel like he means to map them. Bohn shudders and squeezes around him, rippling into every aftershock until Duen is tipping over the edge himself.

There’s drool sliding down Duen’s wrist when he pulls his hand away, and he frowns when Bohn chases after his fingers like he’s starved. “Stop that.”

Bohn whines but complies, rolling over when Duen nudges him so he can clean him off with the towel. He’s still panting, a flush spread from his cheeks all the way down his chest, and normally they’d take advantage of that. Duen likes this, too, likes to get Bohn’s legs around his waist and to slide back in while he’s still wet and open and leaking from only minutes before. But he can read the creeping exhaustion that’s finally become too much in the way Bohn’s eyes flutter closed, the minute, almost apologetic shake of his head, and instead he leans over him to cup his face between his hands and kiss reassurances into his lungs. 

“I’ll get up if the baby cries,” he murmurs against the corner of Bohn’s mouth.

“Mmm, you’re too good to me,” Bohn mumbles in return. 

Sometimes, Duen worries he means it, fears he thinks he’s undeserving of the affection, the care. He says it so often, like a mantra meant to tie down the will and favor of a god, but Duen is ever wholly mortal. He presses another kiss to his lips and tugs the comforter up over them as Bohn nudges him onto his side until he’s tucked himself soundly against Duen's back, fingers splayed out over his heart.

He’s almost asleep when he feels Bohn’s lips press against the dip between his neck and shoulder, the barest whisper kissed to his skin. “Hey, did you really . . . Earlier, did you mean it when you kinda sorta said you’d move in with me?”

Duen arcs an arm behind him, shifts the blankets down as he tangles his fingers into the hair at the back of Bohn’s neck. “Yes. Of course.”

“Cool, cool. Just making sure. You’re sure, right?”

“Yes. On the condition that there’s a bathtub,” Duen adds, because it’s important. Also because he doesn’t want to be quite that easy, he has a reputation to uphold. “A good one. Bonus points for jets.”

“Picky.”

“A big kitchen would be nice too, more room to cook. And a balcony.”

Bohn huffs out a laugh against his shoulder. “Any other requests, your highness?”

“Soundproof walls,” Duen deadpans, and Bohn shakes with silent laughter until his breathing quiets into the deep rise and fall of sleep.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> BOHN IS SOFT SPOILED BOTTOM DO NOT @ ME YOU WEIRD EPISODE 10 PREVIEW
> 
> Edit: episode 10 is out now and I've never been so happy to have been SO ON THE NOSE. Bohn baby, you been knew.


End file.
